“The Journal of Wall Grimm” 38: Grimm’s Fate & Melody

Tuesday I started drinking wine early in the morning and then I didn’t stop drinking. I moved onto vodka, which I like to drink when I’m in public and hiding the drinking because it doesn’t smell so strong. But drunkenness doesn’t have a smell or a lack of smell and so I showed up at work drunk. Sharly was going to send me home but instead she had me lie down in her office to sleep it off. I slept the entire day. Then when I was sober and it was closing time she told me she’d give me one more chance or she’d have to let me go. She said, “What happened to the clever, creative young man I interviewed?” She said she liked me and thinks I’m making bad choices. Tell me about it Sharly. So yeah, I need to smarten up, as my dad would say. “Smarten up Valente.” My parents never call me Wall and struggle to call me Grimm. They prefer to call me Valente. Nobody really calls me Wall, usually just Grimm.

So Anyway, not only did Sharly let me go to work yesterday, but she also left me alone in the store. She said my day at work would decide my fate. She actually said that to me. So about 3:00, this little girl came in the store. She seemed kind of young to be alone, but what the fuck do I know, I’m no parent. She came in and I said “Hey” but she just stared at me and wandered about the store. I kept forgetting she was in there, until every now and then she’d kind of appear and she was beginning to freak me out. I stepped out front for a minute and looked around for an adult, some kind of parent, or owner, whatever, but there wasn’t anyone to be seen. So I began to wonder if she was lost or something.

I really had to search her out before I finally found her sitting in the foreign language section. I asked her if she was lost. I asked her if she spoke English. I asked her where her parents were. She just stared at me. So then I figured I should just leave her alone because I don’t want anyone thinking I’m some kind of freak going after children or anything. So I said, ok well if you need to use the phone or something I’ll be at the counter.

As I was walking away she told me her name. I asked her to repeat it, because I didn’t understand what she said. It sounded like either Melanie, which means darkness, or Malady, which means affliction, or Melody, which obviously is a harmonious tune. So I decided to call her Melody, even though it seemed like her personality and just the energy I got from her was kinda like an interesting combination of the three. I say interesting because I like dark things. She was pretty mysterious for a little girl. I said I’m Grimm and she said, “like Snow White and Rose Red.” I said, “exactly.” Then I leaned over and saw she was looking at a book in German. She told me that she liked looking at the words because they were the same letters as English but they didn’t make any sense when all put together. She thought they were funny, she said, but I never saw her laugh.

She patted the ground to have me sit and then she told me about the kind of woman she wanted to be when she’d grow up. She said strong, and smart, and beautiful on the inside because the outside doesn’t matter. Then she said no one would ever fuck with her because she won’t take shit from anyone. I laughed and she said very seriously, “It’s true.” I said, “I don’t doubt it.”

Then she said out of no where, “Time to go.” And she got up and left, I was like, “Well…bye” as she walked out of the store. She was the freakiest but coolest little kid I’ve ever met. Then I got to thinking. Sharly told me that the day would decide my fate. I mean yeah I went to work on time and sober and none of my stupid friends came in. I was responsible and I was a fantastic Cash Register Attendant. So I did everything right. So my fate could be work related, which means, I did well so I get to keep my job. That’s my fate, a temporary one of course because I don’t want to be a career Cash Register Attendant.

But then I wondered if my longer term fate had to do with Melody. Because sometimes in life you meet those people who are kind of doorways or they’re symbolic of something. Or maybe just your encounter with them is symbolic. I’m thinking maybe, Melody was symbolic. Even the fact that I didn’t quite get her name. My fate is affliction, darkness, then beautiful song. Sounds good to me. I think I’m in between affliction and darkness right now, or something like that anyway. So all I have to do is remember the melody of my future. It’s there, I just have to be patient.

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38: Grimm’s Fate & Melody includes the character Melody who is based on the Avatar of http://mentalnotes1.wordpress.com/ and was created per mentalnotes’ request. These are the links for her posts about her Avatar:

What the hell — who doesn’t need a laugh on a Friday night?
Song of My Future
I want the melody of my future
To contain the deep timbre of your chuckle
And the smooth comfort of your voice
I want the rhythm of my future
To keep time with the beating of your heart
And the strokes of your hand over my hair
I want the lyrics of my future
To repeat the words you whisper in my ear
And the vows we spoke at the altar
I want the harmony of my future
To rely on the strength of your arms
And the devotion conveyed in your shining eyes
I want the song of my future
To be sung each morning as we open our eyes
And on the day my soul slips away to Heaven’s gate.

Hmmm, I’m thinking it’s a shame that this poem will just sit here in my comments. I think either you should post it on your blog, and we can link it up with this post like we did the last time, or I can post it in the Random Grimm-ness category, giving you credit of course, (and reblogging on Sage Doyle so it gets more views). If you don’t like those ideas, and you’d rather let it sit here, or even if you want me to take it down, let me know. It’s your work, so I’ll respect whatever you want to do with it.

I did post it and I ran out of time to do the proper link to the inspirational journal entry. I will do that this afternoon after I spend most of my time with some angsty adolescents (none of which will be mine). Thank you so much for your encouragement. It means more than what I could ever put in words.

(rolling my eyes) And you claim to have once been a hippie! ;) But I certainly wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable, so I will refrain from spelling it out for you. I really need to find some suitable letters.

“I think I’m in between affliction and darkness right now”, what a great phrase! “The Journal of Wall Grimm” is addictive, and peppered with phrases, and word groupings that are so visually dark and clever. Enjoyable, thank you!
Pepper

Well, basically Mentalnotes gave me the links to her posts about this character of hers, I read them and constructed what I believed she’d want. Since the character was a child, I had to come up with an appropriate and realistic scenario in which Grimm would encounter her. So it wasn’t really a collaboration, just a premise that I drew from the character and I named the character. If I can remember correctly, it was one of the first very deep Grimm posts, deeper than what I was used to doing for Grimm, but it had a good reception at the time, so that enabled me to be more versatile with future posts. And thanks, glad you liked it!